Golden Rice 294
thue writes: "According to this story (reg. required) in the NY times "golden rice", ie genetically modified rice which contains beta carotene, could save a million children each year who would otherwise have died from malnutrition. The main reason golden rice is not yet in use is that the methods used in the creation was covered by patents, and getting a deal with the patent holders has delayed them one year (1,000,000 dead as a result!?). But the article also describes great resistance to everything GMO, even something as harmless and beneficial as this. Caution is understandable when dealing with powerful traits such as various kinds of resistance, but beta carotene...?" What I liked about it was that the developers hadn't crippled the strain's ability to reproduce. Genetically-engineered wheat is generally crippled, forcing farmers to buy new seed from the company year after year.
Even sterile GMOs can cross-pollinate successfully (Score:2)
What I liked about it was that the developers hadn't crippled the strain's ability to reproduce. Genetically-engineered wheat is generally crippled, forcing farmers to buy new seed from the company year after year.
But *if* this modified strain of rice should have some nasty side effect, it would be a really bad thing if it reproduced.
Yes - but just because GMO wheat can't produce viable seed from a reproduction standpoint (it's still edible) does not mean that it can't cross-pollinate with other plants, and pass it's attributes on to a plant with reproductive capability. There are a number of cases where a farmer whose 'natural' fields abutt a GMO crop have been sued by Monsanto (in another masterpiece of PR) for having wheat with the Monsanto-engineered attributes as a result of cross-pollination. I wait with interest to see what the courts make of this.
From a personal standpoint, I have little problem with GMO crops where the alterations would have arisen naturally sooner or later during normal reproduction. This is little more than weighting the dice, so to speak. Where you introduce a new protein into the DNA code to make it more resistant to, say, pesticides I have more concerns because this strays a lot further than evolution would have acheived simply by rolling the evolutionary die.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Trial and error (Score:2)
No, the reason is that the gene tech company doesn't want the farmers to use their crop without paying royalties. If this 'golden rice' were genetically crippeled in that way, it would make sure that the 3rd world farmers will have to buy new seed every season. Domesticated crop isn't competitive in natural conditions at all. Many can't even reproduce without the aid of man. Having to spend extra energy making a protein that it doesn't need for itself (the protein that makes beta-carotene in this case) makes it even less competitive. A plant engineered to have resistance against a herbicide is only competitive if the herbicide is present. In natural conditions, without the herbicide present, it still has to spend energy making the herbicide resistance proteins. Genetic engineering is NOT random trial and error, testing in the field, and hoping for the best, like traditional crop improvement techniques.
Multiple causes, multiple effects (Score:5)
Like most complex social issues, you can't place the blame on just one thing.
Consider famine, for instance. The most popular view of famine is that it's caused by lack of food supply, and that the solution to it is supplying food to impoverished regions. But according to Nobel winner Amartya Sen [commerce.ubc.ca] , famines are not caused by lack of food supply, but due to economic and social factors - mainly purchasing ability and electoral feedback.
Famines never occur in democracies, because elected officials are responsive to feedback since they want to be elected again. During the 59-61 famine in China, between 14-40 million people died - a staggering number - yet nothing was done because a totalitarian system prevented the feedback loop [lanka.net] between victims and govt. officials. In cases like this, genetic engineering or a better supply chain doesn't really help much.
The root cause of starvation is economic and social. Even China and India produce enough food to feed their entire populations - it's the way their system is structured that causes the problem. Of course, this doesn't mean that a more nutritious supplement doesn't help. IIRC, thiamine supplements in wheat/bread are required or encouraged by the FDA, in order to save American lives on a statistical scale. In large scale trials, thousands or millions of lives can be saved even with vitamin supplements, but that's not the main solution to nutritional problems.
The root cause is the underlying social and economic infrastructure, and that requires a bigger fix, and will save more lives in the long run.
However, because of the size of the problem, even a "minor fix" such as genetic engineering can save human lives on a massive scale. So it may well be a good solution in certain areas, providing the domino effect and technical details are resolved.
w/m
Re:Crippled for a reason (Score:2)
Biafrans act as if it were software going from the first development build that ran to a final release in one step. News flash for those who would prefer to be scared than informed: If Microsoft went through a software development process similar to the food-approval process, we'd be bitching about the fact that, while Windows 2001 is supremely stable, it would be nice not to have to be limited to the 8.3 filename limitation. It's actually quite slow but with an emphasis on safety.
Any food, GM or not, has to go through an arduous, expensive, long approval process that addresses the very concerns the Know-Nothings bleat about. In fact, it checks for things they have never publicly considered.
Maybe we should make sure this stuff isn't going to kill millions before we unload tons of it on a third world country?
Maybe you should actually read what happens before whimpering in fear. From Are Bioengineered Foods Safe? [fda.gov] from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration [fda.gov]:
No matter how a new crop is created--using traditional methods or biotechnology tools--breeders are required by our colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct field testing for several seasons to make sure only desirable changes have been made. They must check to make sure the plant looks right, grows right, and produces food that tastes right. They also must perform analytical tests to see whether the levels of nutrients have changed and whether the food is still safe to eat.
There are areas where they could be improved in terms of safety (but Biafrans choke at additional animal testing), and other areas where they could improve time-to-market and affordability of the process to increase the number of innovations made, make them cheaper (and thus available to people other than First World consumers). I'd be the last to say that governments are immune to criticism. But for Pete's sake please RTFM and get informed to what the real issues are instead of reading a headline and spewing off based on something you saw in a 1950's Sci-Fi flick whose science was written by English Lit majors.
Harmless and beneficial? Maybe not! (Score:3)
Even 20 years ago, the thought that nature would come up with resistances to almost all our antibiotics was regarded as almost unthinkable, yet here we are with strains of TB, malaria and E.Coli with just one or even no antibiotics which are effective against them.
My caveats against Golden rice, are that whilst it will be almost certainly effective in the short term, it will add several million people to the hungry nations of the world and 10 years or so later we will have to come up with something new. Even more importantly, introducing a single crop which most of the world will be critically dependent on introduces a single point of failure into the crop system, so anything which adversely affect that crop would devastate the Third World.
The Real Solution IMO, is to educate and encourage diversity in the eating habits of the rest of the world. This is a solution which doesn't have a problem with patents, but is obviously unpopular as no one is willing to fund it, whereas the GM companies are probably salivating at getting this idea as the 'foot in the door' to get GM products acceptable to the rest of the world.
Re:Can I just point out (Score:2)
Get real. You can't simply mail the truly poor regions of the world -- in general they have no address. And since their NY Time subscription tends to be a little late, they don't know about Golden Rice and what it can do for them. And why would they trust a letter from a foreigner that tells them to eat strange-colored food? This is assuming that the rice even gets into the country, with most 3rd world countries having a corrupt import system that snatches cargo for themselves more often than not. And the doctor only gets one chance, as he'll be put in jail by the European anti-GM Food sentiment soon after he tries to mail some of this stuff to anyone.
You are being really, really, really naive.
The only way to get this rice to where it will do some good is if it can get into the distribution mechanism of the humanitarian organizations of the world. And the only way to do that is legally, through whatever export/donation system he's now fighting with.
I wish Herr Doctor the best of luck, and I hope his creations become widespread -- legally -- as soon as possible.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:2)
press...
There is concern about agri-business, but the high emotions seem to
be mostly about GM foods, and equal standards are not being applied to
both. Look at the furore about the Monarch butterfly, and compare it
to the list of species that have become endangered by pesticides
Sure, there are dangers to GM foods, but they also promise to end
one of the great environmental crimes of the modern day: drowning huge
areas of land with dangerous bioactive chemicals, which cripple
biodiversity and poison water supplies.
This is cool! (Score:3)
Greed & Powerlust (Score:2)
Bob Geldof then went in with eyes wide shut, and secured aid for famine relief. A noble man, but ill informed and painfully naive.
Of course, the Ethiopian government was grateful. How do you think they fed their soldiers? Money from Live Aid was used to support the Ethiopian government in the civil war against rebels. Since rebels were indistinguishable from the general farming population, the government decided to drive out and persecute its own people. Hence, the famine.
Some of the most vivid footage I saw was of an Ethiopian fighter jet bombing a farming village. Damn.
The media has to shoulder a large part of the blame. There was at least one reporter who was trying to give a picture of the real situation but she was ignored and accused of trying to crash the party.
Sorry, I couldn't find a more informative link to Channel 4's informative program.
The raindrops patter on the bamboo leaf, but these are not tears of grief;
This is only the anguish of him who is listening to them.
alternative link (Score:4)
It is not about the rice. (Score:4)
Credit Cards If you make the minimum payment you pay twice as much for everything you buy. This puts the average middle class household below the poverty line all by itself. $50,000 provides only $25,000 in buying power when you use credit cards. Visa/Mastercard is a TRUST. Needless to say, like Microsoft, they are not looking out for your best interests.
Insurance When the government mandates that money must leave your pocket that is called a TAX. Since low income/bad neighborhood/poor driving records pay much high rates for a given value of car, Insurance is a tax inversely proportional to income. When was the last time you had representation in the insurance company?
Money Buys Government Corporations have won every election and ballot measure for the last 25 years. Is it any wonder we have corporate welfare and lesser of two evils choices for candidates. As long as corporations control the government, YOU DON'T
Dollars = Lives The US gross national product per capita is $31,746 SO, if you work from age 18 to 65 on average you will produce about 1.5 million dollars in a lifetime. Therefore the average US life is worth 1.5 million dollars. When someone accumulates vast wealth they are in fact harnessing the output of other people for their own gain. 100 billion dollars is 66,000 lives. The creation of 100 billion dollars requires 66,000 people to born, work their entire lives and die. Despite Bill being a nice guy and donating 3 billion to charity (there is that less than 3% again) He is personally responsible for 66,000 deaths. Take these figure out across the NYSE and NASDAQ and you will have Billions of people dying To benefit a select few.
You may not buy all my arguments but as you can see 1,000,000 people dying because of one patent is ludicrous. For those of you who are part of the system that destroys lives, saying "that's just the way it is" is not an excuse. "I was just following orders"
Strange story (Score:3)
"this was all done with idea of helping poor countries, research was payed by tax-payers, and no-one will be asked to pay any royalities"
Very strange: i wonder if it is the same project? The one I'm talking about was developed in Europe (Switzerland if i remember it correctly). If only this story would not require registration.ethics of mankind (Score:2)
Honestly, I'm not sure mankind, as a whole, has advanced ethically at all. Ever. We've just gotten really good at euphamism.
Meet the new Man, same as the old Man.
Re:Even sterile GMOs can cross-pollinate successfu (Score:2)
Because we have several hundred years' experience with the several hundred year old technology. That technology and its consequences are relatively well-understood (for example, we now know not to cross-breed american honey bees with african ones :). We know a lot less about GMOs.
Re:unknown (Score:5)
Yes, it's why a polar bear's liver is inedible, and why several Vitamin-A derived Acne medications have warning labels.
That's one of the reasons why the the Vitamin A in Golden Rice is in the form of Beta Carotene, which can be taken in doses 100's of times greater than the RDA (Vitamin A is considered to be toxic at around 20x RDA). BTW, Beta Carotene overdoses happen in real life every so often, usually with individuals who consume too much (up to several gallons) of carrot juice. There are no toxic effects, although in cases of severe overdose, your skin may turn orangish for several months.
news flash: Giant Rice Kernel Eats Manhatan (Score:2)
Guliani was stunned, "I did'nt know that anything could grow around here and I thought it was a joke until the fire cheif reasured me in person. I'll bet those Green Peace nuts planned this one."
Senator Rodham feigned absolute prescience, "I knew this would happen one day and now I'll do my best to make sure all working families will get their fair share."
Experts at NYU were considering plans that had something to do with great heat, marshmallows and sugar but did not expect results soon.
Re:Ummm, I've got a radical idea... (Score:4)
stop paying farmers not to produce food, and ship the resulting excess to those self same
countries?
This wouldn't be as nice as it sounds. Doing that, you ruin the local economy there. Farmers in the 3rd world cant hope to compete with the dump prices and high quality of the goods we don't need, and are forced to give up their work, and move to the city to live off the garbage.
The problem this vitamin A enriched rice was meant to tackle wasn't a complete lack of food (in that case food aid like you suggest would be more in place), but a lack of vitamins caused by a diet of rice alone...
Re:GM food is not a good idea yet (Score:2)
Actually, Penicillin reproduces very well. Give it a loaf of bread and a warm, damp place and you'll see just how well it reproduces. The original strain of Penicillin was a contaminant in a petri dish, with later strains coming from such exotic locations as a rotting canteloupe.
Extraction and purification is the tricky part.
we need sound social policy, not GMO (Score:2)
We have already increased agricultural productivity, yield, and nutritional value many times over over the last few centuries. Initial improvements gave us the free time we needed to build our civilization. But beyond that point, productivity improvements have not stopped hunger, malnutrition, or overpopulation.
At this point, we don't need more productive or more nutritious crops. If we had the political will, we could already feed the current population well with the crops we have. What we really need to work on limiting the size of earth's population through social progress and access to family planning, as well as a more uniform distribution of wealth throughout the world. If we don't accomplish that, huge numbers of people will continue to die from hunger, malnutrition, and war, no matter what genetic gimmicks we invent.
Instead of GM food, we should have GM people (Score:3)
BTW, is General Motors aware of any of what's going on here?
Re:It is not about the rice. (Score:2)
Now I know I'm on slashdot. Mentioning Microsoft in a discussion totally devoid of anything related to computers... yeah.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Link to some of Ingo Potrykus' Responses (Score:3)
Genetics and binary files (Score:2)
You see, they're not giving away the source code at all; this is more equivalent to a binary. Genetic engineering has more in common with reverse engineering than it does with looking at the source code.
Genetic engineering, therefor, is more like a crack or patch for a piece of software. Just try and tell me that you've never used a crack or hacked piece of warez before.
Want to take this a step further? How about comparing it to an RFC? He's essentially said that hey, this is what we've done to rice. We've added some beta carotine. Cool. If you want it, to test it out, be my guest. Just, could you help me get these patent lawyers off my back..?
Of course, your argument is more about the ecosystem, and how introducing this may cause side effects.
It's true that the ecosystem's a pretty fragile system. But you've also got to remember that it's pretty sturdy, too. Look at this crop of Zebra Mussels, for instance, that have filled up the great lakes. Everyone in the industry thought this'd be the end of the world... so why haven't we heard about them in ten plus years?
Granted, not everything just disappears, but there's a reason our ecosystem's survived this long. Survival by any means is built into everything we see. How long have trees been around, anyways? If you think about it, the most disastrous thing that could possibly happen would be that humanity'd be wiped out. And considering the type of people that exist today, I should think it'd be about time for a little shake-up.
To all of you who think frankenfood is wrong, let's put this in perspective. He's trying to manufacture genetic code to help people stay alive. To do this, all he's done is mix some beta carotine into rice. Very straight-forward. Yet in the US and Canada, there are currently researchers pulling apart human embryos, trying to "find" the cure for cystic fibrosis, and several other notable diseases. To do this, they aren't pulling apart rice embryos; they're pulling apart human embryos and protoplasts.
Forget for the moment the fact that they're using human genetics to accomplish this. Now it isn't that I say the goal isn't noble, but why do I get the feeling that, should a "cure" be found tomorrow, people aren't going to worry so much about polluting the human genetic code and the effects on the ecosystem as they are in making sure these people get Nobel prizes..?
How about those who attempt to benefit from these discoveries directly? Are people who get genetic alterations to combat illnesses going to be called frankenpersons, and be relegated to second-class citizens with special emmigration requirements? Will they have to pay the patent holder if they want to have children?
My charge is this; are we really so bold that we believe only we humans should benefit from genetics? Are we so arrogant that we believe only ourselves to be capable of handling the side effects properly? And lastly, are we so arrogant that we believe that more damage that can come from genetically engineering one grain of rice than can come from genetically engineering the single most destructive animal on the face of the earth?
Re:Harmless and beneficial? Maybe not! (Score:2)
Well, you are right in part regarding acquired immunity to antibiotics, however there are some problems with your details. Malaria is a parasite that has never been effectively treatable with antibiotics. Some strains of E-Coli are actually beneficial as anyone who has been dosed by tetracycline will attest.
My caveats against Golden rice, are that whilst it will be almost certainly effective in the short term, it will add several million people to the hungry nations of the world and 10 years or so later we will have to come up with something new.
Golden rice is addressing a fundamental dietary need that is not going to go away. Perhaps it will result in an increse in population, however that is yet to be proven. In many poor countries large families are a response to high infant mortality rates. When a country achieves better economic conditions, family size tends to decline.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:2)
The biggest problem we have now is that the kinds of changes are so completely artificial and the rate with which we can make those changes are so accelerated that the potential for serious unintended side effects may vastly outweigh the benefits.
That's exactly the point! At least with older selective breeding techniques, all of the initial genetic strains are known to be genetically viable. They never add an entirely new gene to the genome, just recombine existing ones and select for preferred qualities. They especially don't turn recessive traits dominant. In most cases, we can take comfort in the fact that if new strain is fertile and it crosses with 'wild' strains, the new traits will likely not be expressed. Furthermore, if the new trait turns out to be a problem for plant survival, it will be quickly removed from the genome by natural processes.
On the other hand, fertile GM plants can have harmful traits that are more likely to be dominant. Then there's the instability of the modifications. Fertile GM plants often have less stable genetics and can have their modifications mutate or become lost (to be replaced with ?) one or more generations out.
The real problem is that it typically isn't as profitable to produce something poor people need as it is to produce something rich people want.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:2)
Considering that there's enough food in this world to feed every single person sufficiently, there is NO need for FrankenFood whatsoever... of course, as other posters have already stated, companies are creating these genetically modified foods to "corner the market"
Re:GM food is not a good idea yet (Score:2)
Somehow, nature forgave us for introducing things like horses to North America and tobacco to Europe, even though these things were -clearly- never intended to happen through any 'natural' means.
Like Nature is now forgiving us for feeding animal products to sheep by gifting us with BSE? There are examples either way. But what I'd like to add to the discussion of "luddite crackpots, weepy Sally-Fieldsesque mothers and pseudo-scientists stoping us" is that we need to separate the argument into one argument about Science and another one about Morals.
The philosopher Ken Wilber [shambhala.com] has put forward the idea of three major knowledge spheres, namely Art, Morals and Science. They correspond to The Beautiful, The Good, and The True. And they refer to I, We and It respectively. So Science is a study of "Its" (objective Truth), Art the study of the "I" (subjective Beauty), and Morals the study of "We" (intersubjective Good).
One of Wilbers' key points (if I'm representing his ideas right), is that none of these areas can be "reduced" to any of the others. For example, when a person feels hate, certain chemicals flood their brain. When they feel love, a different set of chemicals are released. Scietifically we can measure the chemicals, but science cannot tell us that one chemical is "better" than another chemical. Objectively Its are all just "stuff". But intersubjectively, We can agree that love is better than hate. And We can develop social systems that promote the Good.
So the luddite-crackpots are not really "anti-science" (although they may misguidedly aim their action in that direction). It's not a scientific problem. Its a problem of Values, social systems and social needs. Is it Better to develop new technologies, with their risks and benefits for our world, or to try to solve these problems of famine with other means?
I hear scientists in the media talk about the need for their work -- ie. famine etc. but they seldom talk about the possible abuses of their technology. I think perhaps they are getting Science and Morals mixed up also. The point of splitting Science, Morals and Art is to allow each to proceed unencumbered by the others. Science can say what can be done. Morals say whether it should be done.
GM food is indeed quite ready now.
Scientifically, GM food is indeed ready. We literally have the scientific technology. What we haven't worked out is whether we Morally, intersubjectively, socially, can make good use of it. Remember that it's the scientists themselves who say that their work is about finding Better ways to feed the world.
So the debate is a Moral-social-intersubjective one: is this technology really the way to feed the world, or is the problem not about technology at all, but rather social systems? And if it is about social systems, are not both the scientists and the anti-scientists missing the point?
Re:Moderate this up! (was -- Re:Netfuture issue #1 (Score:2)
It's time we start to read such articles critcally, and think carefully about how and what they say, even if we have political misgivings about the other side. It does no good to put forth specious arguments.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:2)
Why don't we hear the same screaming and yelling about pesticides and fertilisers, which are *proven* to cause long-term damage to the environment
The screaming is going on all the time, but it's not as sensational and buzz word friendly as FrankenFoods, so the media doesn't report it.
I have noticed that organic foods grow in popularity by the day (now available at the regular grocery store), and there are now products that claim to more effectively wash the pesticides off of fruits and vegetables. A lot of that is health consciousness (particularly the fruit and vegetable wash), but some of it is environment and sustainability consciousness as well.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:2)
Polar Bear Livers (Score:2)
From Emazing Science Facts [emazing.com]:
"Polar bear livers have such high levels of vitamin A that they are highly toxic to human beings."
From The Alaska Cooperative Extension [uaf.edu]:
"While most people do not have a ready source of polar bear liver, it is a well known, even notorious source of vitamin A. That is, vitamin A is toxic marginally above required levels and polar bear liver is exceptionally potent."
From Discovery Online [discovery.com]:
"Although the extremely high vitamin A content in this fatty diet would be toxic to humans, the polar bear's liver can process it just fine. (When traditional Eskimo hunters killed a polar bear, they would drop its liver through a hole in the ice so nobody would be tempted to eat it.)"
From The Encyclopedia Britannica [britannica.com]:
"The polar bear is sought for its trophy value and (especially by Eskimo) for its hide, tendons, fat, and flesh; the liver, however, is inedible and often poisonous because of its high vitamin A content."
Thank you, drive through.
Re:unknown (Score:2)
Beta Carotene was first isolated from carrots, and is the main pigment that gives their roots an orange color. At lower concentrations, Beta Carotene can give a yellowish appearance, as it does in Golden Rice.
From WebMD.com [webmd.com]:
"...Your friend's yellow-orange skin hue is a tell-tale sign of a beta carotene overdose from his hefty carrot juice consumption."
From Mywellness.com [mywellness.com]:
"Drink too much carrot juice and your skin will begin to turn orange. This won't harm you, Diekman says, but it's a sign that you are probably getting more than your body needs."
From Hallelujah Acres [hacres.com]:
"Carotenemia is the medical term for increased blood levels of the pigment carotene, a vitamin-A precursor found mainly in the fruits and vegetables, especially carrots and sweet potatoes. The excess carotene is deposited in the skin, where it imparts that distinctive hue. High blood levels of carotene are harmless, and enzymes in the body limit that nutrient's conversion to vitamin A so the vitamin won't reach toxic levels. If you don't like the orange color, cut down on the carrots or supplements. Your skin color will return to normal after a few weeks."
Yeah, GREAT IDEA! (Score:3)
This means, if this little number of a genetically modified rice kernel is extremely harmful (similar things have happened before with frankenfoods) we may be unable to stop it from growing with disasterous consequences.
The whole 'grow once and never again' isn't just a good business model for the corporations that make this stuff, it's a safety precaution.
As jello biafra said, "We're incompetant as human beings, even worse at playing god"
I tend to agree.
Additionally, people aren't starving or suffering from malnutrition because food isn't constructed properly, they're starving because not enough people care to do anything about it. Don't blame the food, blame society.
If you think for a minute that the people making this crap aren't spinning the "Look how many people are dying because we can't distribute our product' angle out of pure greed, you're got another thing coming.
Re:patients (Score:2)
Re:Moderate this up! (was -- Re:Netfuture issue #1 (Score:3)
It's time you read such articles not only more critically, but also past the first couple of paragraphs. It might also do some good to think that even with all the great intentions that the good doctor had in developing the Golden Rice, it may not be the best thing in the world. Read the ENTIRE article and then look back at your own statements and see the foolishness.
Re:Yeah, GREAT IDEA! (Score:2)
If we don't use that technology to the fullest, we will surely realize the future predicted in that movie. We shouldn't let a few luddites who scream bloody murder about us "Playing God" with Genetic Engineering (While convienently ignoring us "Playing God" with drugs, electricity and modern transportation) bother us.
Re:unknown (Score:2)
It _is_ commonly used to dye foods that people do ingest in great quantities, like lemonade.
Re:caution (Score:2)
Zebra mussels are an accidental import, coming over attached to ship bottoms.
In any case, none of your examples have anything to do with the food chain.
Given that the problem of malnutrition is not the result of a lack of resources in the world, but of a flawed distrobution system
Commonly held, but erroneous. It takes resources to move food, resources that sustenance economies do not posses.
rather than inventing one more expensive, monopoly-controlled food source and peddling it to the world's poorest countries
Sigh. Did you even read the article? Golden rice is not more expensive, and the plan is to provide free to third world farmers.
Re:Crippled for a reason (Score:2)
Re:Ummm, I've got a radical idea... (Score:2)
Re:Unlicensed Golden Waves of Grain. (Score:2)
Would you be surprised to hear that fertilizer is destructive?
You know phosphates are bad for the environment? They're bad because they're fertilizers. Plant nutrients are bad for the environment. They cause more algae to grow in bodies of water. They can cover the surface, and make it hard for plants to grow under water. And then fish die.
So if plant nutrients are bad for the environment, what about human nutrients? Let's imagine there was a bacterium that used beta-carrotene as its main source of nutrition. With limited supplies of beta-carrotene in the wild, it would not be a seriou threat. But with the golden rice windfall, the bacteria could multiply and make some people very sick.
Re:Neo-Luddites and /, (Score:2)
Old doesn't necessarily mean useless though, unless you're driving about in an electric car, have a solar-powered house with low-power lightbulbs in every room and a widescreen plasma TV. I'm not a neo-Luddite, but I am dubious of corporations telling me their product is wonderful, being the cynical almost-thirtysomething I am.My cynicism on GMO being no different to that on cars, computers, drugs, operating systems etc etc.
Re:caution (Score:2)
Once bitten, twice shy. (Score:2)
Think of it. "Microsoft Eggplant 2.0," complete with a EULA, service packs, and bug reports.
Re:Yeah, GREAT IDEA! (Score:2)
I'm much less with you (in fact, not at all) about the "frankenfoods" tag. Find other examples of GM crops being harmful. And even finding examples is difficult - over in the UK, first the protesters said they didn't want full-scale growing so they got some field trials (sorry for the pun!), then they decided that growing them in fields was bad so they trashed the crops (causing thousands of pounds worth of damage and delaying testing programs by years), and now they want to ban the research altogether. If this seems like a rational and considered approach to anyone, they should call a psychiatrist immediately.
The problem with "grow once only" is that it imposes yearly costs on the growers. All the GM companies were originally going to do non-reproductive seed, (a) for more money, and (b) bcos we don't know enough about it - admittedly probably more (a) than (b). Then front-page articles in all the papers said "GM companies ripping off poor countries", and editorials were saying that this was blatant exploitation of the poor man, and all the aid organisations said that something must be done. Under huge pressure from governments on the issue, the GM companies had to switch to reproductive grain. Now the editorials are saying "Is this safe?" and "Frankenfoods will pollute our countryside", and they're recommending the exact opposite. So what do you think they should do? Are you recommending that GM companies listen to the public, or are you actually only recommending that they listen to the section of the public which shares your views? And be honest to yourself when you answer that one...
You're part-right about the failure of society - in many countries (particularly Africa) there is starvation due to the effects of wars, particularly civil wars, and the average guys are getting it in the neck. This stuff won't help there - the problem is in the political system, not the agriculture system. Where it will help is in poor countries where the ppl are not dying of hunger but are suffering poor health and premature death due to vitamin deficiencies through living exclusively on a diet of rice or millet without any access to fresh fruit, meat or other essential dietary elements.
Grab.
PS. Jello Biafra isn't exactly my choice of a considered voice of reason and a sound ideological example!
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:3)
or should we start worrying about the balence of nature and the rights of the smallpox virus (which is basically extinct except for a couple of vials under tight security in a couple of research labs)?
this really bothers me given the apparent lack of ethics of the seed companies, vs the wanna be a luddite attitude of some of the protesters.
there are valid points on both sides, and rash stupidity as well.
We should be able to include this sort of thing into a strain of seed, etc. if we do it right. This turbulent fear of "we'll always screw it up" is rather unproductive. since apparently we need a better way to catch the "bugs" in the process.
Open sourcing the process is probably not a good idea though.
Re:Mod the parent up. (Score:2)
Betcha didn't know that people for decades used lead to turn oranges a nice color.. ahhh, the ignorant masses.
Fortunatly, since the trees weren't genetically modified to naturally extract lead from the soil and deposit it in the orange, it was easy enough to 'get the lead out' when it was found to be a problem. Imagine if everyone had been growing trees that DID naturally transport lead into the orange!
Nobody is saying that there isn't potential for more conventional techniques of food production to go wrong (mad cow anyone?), just that conventional techniques are easier to reverse if something does go wrong.
Consider that there is no technical reason that the many and various starving masses can't employ 21st century methods, starting from stone age tools and working their way up if necessary (humans as a whole did that without the benefit of books and roadmaps after all). The problems are lack of education, political factions that prefer turf wars and power plays to prosperity for all, political will on the part of wealthier countries, corperate desire for a cheap labor pool, and low short term profitability in helping poor people (the market development tome for the third world for most consumer goods well execceds the next quarterly report).
Re:Moderate this up! (was -- Re:Netfuture issue #1 (Score:2)
Yes, it is all speculative, what the article says about the problem with the Golden Rice. But then, so too, are the benefits of the Golden Rice. Just because it has beta carotene now doesn't mean that it IS good for those who are Vitamin A deficient - it is speculative to think that adding beta carotene will definitely do them good.
It is also speculative that the Golden Rice won't do any harm to anybody or to the environment.
You see, being speculative is two-edged.
As far as trying it out, I agree that it's worth a shot - you could try it out if you want, and the doctor could certainly try it out if he wants. I think that it's unreasonable for people targeted by the Golden Rice to try it out though - I refuse to think that people have to be guinea pigs first just to see if something might help them and might not have any harmful side-effect.
The wholistic approach is not saying sit back and not try things. The wholistic approach is saying, there are ways to help these people out without resorting to drastic "silver bullet" solutions that don't consider the whole picture of the possible effects of the Golden Rice. The approaches are simpler and better for the people in the long run. In a way, what I am saying is that giving them the Golden Rice is like giving them the fish, whereas teaching them and enabling them to farm more diverse foods and help them build distribution infrastructure for the foods that they already have would be to teach them how to fish.
Give them one Golden Rice, and they will have other problems that need fixing - what's next? Vitamin B deficiency? Vitamin C? Do we go down the entire alphabet?
It's really too bad that people don't eat brown rice and instead insists on white rice - it would do them a world of good.
By no means do I think we shouldn't try something just because it's new and scary sounding. No. But if the solution to the problem is already there, then why not use it?
The bigger picture, if you choose to see it, is that many of these places are suffering because of the global economy. Think about it, we in the western world that have abundant capital and resources can always get whatever we need, and therefore our diet can be balanced and sufficient (though it is not balanced and is overabundant, but I digress). Those in the developing countries grow cash crops to be exported out because it is more valuable to use their land to grow such crops (whether the crops are destined for food or other things is pretty important too) because they get more money out of it. But they still get relatively little money and they remain poor, and with poor distribution infrastructure, even it they have the money they couldn't get the foods they need very easily.
What they don't realize is that growing a variety of plants for food, they will be more wealthy, nutritionally, while being poor in cash. They need to be educated on such things.
And the western world is also to blame for such problems because of the way it exploits the developing countries to grow these crops relatively cheaply, just so that it can import it all to people who end up throwing it all away because they can't eat all of it!
So the wholistic approach is to teach people how to survive and subsist on their own effort without requiring western aid. And the funny thing is, while the western world is trying to help on the one hand, it is enslaving and exploiting these people capitalistically on the other.
GM food is not a good idea yet (Score:2)
Okay, so advances in genetic engineering seem to offer us the chance to do a lot of good for world hunger, but the trouble is that we just don't know what effects this stuff will have on us. When it comes to new medicines we insist upon years and years of scientifically conducted trials before allowing them to be used on people, and even then look at the things that crop up years later.
The wholesale introduction of GM foods into our food chain is just too risky at the moment. It's a new technology and mistakes are part of the learning process, and will inevitably be made. If history has taught us anything, it's that no new advance comes without teething troubles. And given this, the last thing we should do is push for them to be used by the general public - a mistake now could cost millions of lives and contaminate other crops, making them tainted as well.
Things like this seem innocuous enough, but you can't let one thing go through because it "seems harmless". Without investigation it could be even the smallest of changes that goes bad, and when it's something as fundamental as food, we can't afford a single mistake.
GM food is just not ready now. We shouldn't let the greed of a few corporations and the advocacy of tecnology fetishists blind us to the very real potential for disaster.
OTOH (Score:4)
But *if* this modified strain of rice should have some nasty side effect, it would be a really bad thing if it reproduced.
Dunno. My feelings towards GMO crop is like my feelings towards an unknown binary.
It might do wonderful things, but I don't want to test it on a system that I need for a living, computer or biotope.
Re:unknown (Score:2)
Sorry, I can't give you a number. I do know that the amount varies greatly depending on a person's ability to excrete or break down the excess beta carotene, and I've heard of it happening in people who consumed a single glass (8 oz.) of carrot juice a day.
Re:Yeah, GREAT IDEA! (Score:2)
Re:Why not just distibute vitamins? (Score:2)
And you say this in the same breath as, "Why not just distribute Vitamins?"
We're dealing with a population that has to worry about affording enough simple Calories to stay alive. Purchasing vitamins is out of the question. Sure, we could simply give them the pills instead, but while a pill may be cheap for us, they would have to be continually supplied, and so the recipients would be dependent on the fickle largesse of first-world donors.
No, Golden Rice will not save the world, but why are you so critical of this one man's attempt to help?
"Start somewhere, start small, but please start..."
Re:Yeah, GREAT IDEA! (Score:2)
And similarly, just because we grow GE crops doesn't mean we've lost.
On many levels GE is just like antibiotics - build a better disease-killer, and all you get are better diseases.
You can't group GE crops together like this. Genetic engineering is a process, not a product. Sure one product might be bad, but the process is sound and exhaustive tests indicate that this product is too. In fact, this golden rice doesn't contain any pesticides or extra protection that normal rice doesn't already. So this product, created with a scientifically sound process, is perfectly fine under your criterion. Tell me now again why we shouldn't be supporting this whole-heartedly?
This is why the social part of the problem is so vital. Slash-and-burn techniques won't stop being used just because the crops being grown are now GE. And if those new GE foods aren't shipped to places that need them, but rather appear in supermarkets in the U.S. (fetching higher prices than the "less healthy" non-GE equivalent, of course), then we haven't achieved anything.
Both of these problems exist independently of GE food. So instead of trying to block GE food just because it isn't a perfect solution, maybe you should try to stop these other practices regardless of what food is being produced or sold.
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Reproduction crippling can be a good thing. (Score:2)
I'd like to believe that in future more and more food will be available organically but this is unlikely to be the case if GM strains of crops are allowed to spread their seeds naturally - if organic crops get contaminated it will cripple the organic farmers!
I know that there is more risk from the pollen than the seed but I believe that if the scientists working on these products can stop the plants from re-producing they should find a way to make GM pollen inert so it poses no danger to organic crops.
Rice with contraceptives instead ! (Score:3)
OTOH 1 million children a year is 0.1% of the number of people who don't have clean potable water to drink. Also, while the birthrates for the bottom 5th of economies is high, the corresponding rate for slightly more advanced economies is only marginally lower. Combined with higher survival rates post age 5 you have a population pyramid that explodes at the bottom, pushes the media age down and provides an enormous base for another population explosion from the next generation. So while the poorest contries may have a birth rate over 4% and media life expectancy of 44, the next poorest countries may have a birthrate of 3.5% and a life expectancy of 59. The excepts most of sub Saharan Africa which because of AIDS is expected to have a net negative birthrate, a decrease in life expectancy to 40 and an absolute near elimination in the population between age 14-60 in the next 10 to 15 years.
So while we argue about engineered corn and rice, pest resistant fruit and enhanced protein water plants let's keep in mind that feeding someone is life long proposition. Developing economies do not have sustainable models - at least none that anyone has been able to apply yet. So the notion that all you have to do is feed the children is wishful thinking. With all of those now-fed children come a host of other problems like urban density, sewage treatment, public health and hygiene, education that no one who's screaming about the evils of genetic engineering is prepared to think about. The argument so far seems to be a debate about who is more fearful of being ignorant. We have the "it's an unknown we don't know what mutant we'll unleash on the world" argument. Or we have the "it's against Gods plan to mess with fertility" argument. On the other side of the aisle we have the "technology will save us" battle cry. Neither argument really takes into consideration what happens if you are successful because in both cases you have a world filled with miserable starving fecund people.
Re:Yeah, IGNORANT POST! (Score:2)
WARNING The prior post pegs the bullshit meter. Please try a balanced site [colostate.edu] for a more informed view.
Summary: are there risks in GM foods? yes. Are they anything like what our loud, screaming friend intimates? NO.I challenge tippergore to cite, with supporting link, a single example of an "extremely harmful" GM prodcut ever making to the food supply. (Yes, there was a problem for some allergy sufferers when a Brazil nut gene was inserted into soybeen, but this was halted while still in research.)
please please educate yourself before lobbying for 2 million children a year to die of B1 deficiency.
It's not even in alpha test yet (Score:2)
So they have a ways to go until it ships.
You're right, so is overpopulation (Score:2)
It's a big lie. (Score:3)
When I went to S11 [s11.org], one of the speakers at the Sunday protest was Dr Vandana Shiva who spoke about this "new" Golden Rice. (She an Indian Eco-Feminist.) The amount of Vitamin A is delivers to the body is much, much smaller then what other forms of food can provide.
In short, it was a con by the company who developed the product to use the WTO and health reasons to take over the market of locally grown rice for a profit.
You can read all about it here [abc.net.au].
Re:unknown (Score:2)
Hey! Prior art!
The Case Against (Score:2)
http://www.netlink.de/gen/Zeitung/2000/001015a.
(Non-German readers, don't worry about the
--
Re:Who'se to blame for starvation? (Score:2)
Crippled for a reason (Score:4)
Also, there are huge safety concerns with genetically modified food. Maybe we should make sure this stuff isn't going to kill millions before we unload tons of it on a third world country?
We need to slow way down with our adoption of these food products. There have been far too many disasters unleashed by our arrogance already.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:2)
GE foods are bad, compared to what (Score:2)
So in the end you have to decide whether the risks inherent in using GE foods is worth what you yourself deem to be the overarching critical need to do so. And if it is are you talking about taco shells in the supermarket or are you talking about basic foodstuffs in far off Bangladesh where just thinking that you are concerned is sufficient.
Re:Yeah, GREAT IDEA! (Score:2)
Who'se to blame for starvation? (Score:2)
Zebra mussels were not 'introduced' on purpose (Score:2)
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Re:Yeah, IGNORANT POST! (Score:2)
You apparently have difficulty either reading or applying basic logic. My challenge was for an " extremely harmful." example. That was the claim being made in the orignal post. You're example was "wasn't approved for human consuption (sic.)"
While the taco shells may ultimately be found to be "extremely harmful," I am unaware of any data that indicates such to be the case. Indeed, it took an exquisitely sensitive laboratory procedure to even realize the issue existed. With something truly dangerous, like arsenic, no such sophistry would be required.
Patents (Score:3)
But then, the corpratist mentality has no concept of morality (IE, remember the
There needs to be some kind of control on patents such as these that makes it manatory for the patentholders to be reasonable and expeditious with licensing. How this can be done, I don't know.
But then, if the patentholders had a brain among them, they might understand that releasing a product cheaply that may save a million lives is better marketing for your company than any slick sleazy annoying Madison Avenue firm can do for you, at ANY cost!
I Agree With "Cripping" The Genes (Score:2)
There are many more issues involved with genetically altered plants. I personally am all for it; the possible benefits are simply too great to pass up. But in the meantime I'll feel safer knowing that these things cannot reproduce.
Unless of course, like in Jurassic Park these plants were implanted with African Toad DNA, and end up growing functional reproductive organs. On second thought that would be pretty damn funny.
Resistance to GM food (Score:2)
There are plenty of reasons why GM technology should be approached with caution; however I have to say I'm pretty repulsed by the means Greenpeace and similar organisations take to it. Their campaigns are almost entirely based around fuzzy, emotion-based appeals to anti-science sentiment. I am actually a member of Greenpeace, because I happen to think climate change is an enormous problem, but I nearly resigned over this.
Sorry if the links are screwed, this mozilla daily build is a bit flakey.
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If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles
Re:2010 Nobel Peace Prize goes to... (Score:2)
Any harm yet? (Score:3)
Re:GM food is not a good idea yet (Score:2)
Seriously,what do you think we are more likely to be harmed by: a terrorist with genetically modified flu, or rice with added beta carotene?
Worst case calamity index of your terrorist's flu virus scheme is t, of the potential disaster arising from carotene-enriched rice is r; likelihood of any terrorist being able to fund such a gen-eng project, p sub t, is very very close to zero, likelihood of actual real world progress in "golden rice" scheme, p sub r, is maybe one half? within a decimal order of magnitude of a half, anyway?
So maybe the total risk for rice, r times p sub r, might be numerically greater, might be worth hyper-critically looking at anyway, perhaps measure twice cut once, maybe look before you leap, than that risk t times p sub t signified by your terrible word "terrorism," whatever that means. ("Terrorism" must be a marca registrada exclusively owned by the Other guys as "Rolling Thunder" for example was not "terrorism.")
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Re:unknown (Score:2)
Re:Crippled for a reason (Score:2)
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:2)
I'm with you, for the most part, humans have been genetically altering livestock and crops for millenia, it's called selective breeding. And while we may not have had an in-depth understanding of genetics (and still probably don't), certainly any agricultural scientist (or farmer) paid close attention to these issues. The biggest problem we have now is that the kinds of changes are so completely artificial and the rate with which we can make those changes are so accelerated that the potential for serious unintended side effects may vastly outweigh the benefits.
In this case, instead of feeding these people the rice, perhaps they could extract the beta-carotene and administer it in the form of vitamin pills-- something we're all comfortable with at this point. That way the genetic oddities of the whole food are not in play. Of course, that's not efficient if the food is safe, so who am I to say. Wouldn't it be easier to just grow carrots? I mean, rice? How bland can you get?
Re:Once bitten, twice shy. (Score:2)
Note that I'm not a priori hostile to GM foods. I used to be as cavelier about it as a lot of posters here seem to be ("oh, it's no different than selective breeding:" this is patently incorrect, it's quite different) but it took a plant biologist and a biochemist to teach me exactly how much really could go wrong, and at what cost. I won't try to overextend myself by describing science that I only know insofar as I trust their objectivity (just as they do mine for domains in which I'm stronger), but I was fairly persuaded away from my earlier "no worries" stance.
2010 Nobel Peace Prize goes to... (Score:2)
As a result of 10 years of eating beta-carotene enhanced rice, the majority of human beings are now healthy, disease-free, and ... orange.
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IV
Re:unknown (Score:2)
You can't compare these things. When we still thought that the earth was flat, we had absolutely no clue what was on the other side. You can't use that to argue that now that we can fly all the way around it, we still can't be absolutely sure about the shape of the earth, because me made false assumptions about it earlier.
Anyway, I am not arguing that genetic engineering is perfectly safe, but neither are traditional crop improvement techniques. My point is that people will only listen if you talk about the potential dangers, no matter how far fetched, and they are willing to believe any story, even very very rediculous ones, as long as they are negative. No wonder that as a result people are scared!
Thalidomide probably was one of the reasons for this. It was one of the first chemically engineered medicines (as opposed to derived from plant material), but done in a time when not a lot was known about the structure of molecules at all. It is sad, but not surprising that as a result people will not believe us anymore when we claim that we do know enough about the structure of molecules now...
Crippling Reproduction A GOOD Thing! (Score:2)
"What I liked about it was that the developers hadn't crippled the strain's ability to reproduce. Genetically-engineered wheat is generally crippled, forcing farmers to buy new seed from the company year after year."
That is terrible. The reason genetically-engineered wheat is generally crippled is not just for the company's sake, but to prevent a genetically-engineered strain from out-competing natural strains. The reason is simple - ecosystems containing these organisms are extremely complex and even tiny changes may have far-reaching effects. By "crippling" genetically-engineered organisms' reproduction, you always have the option of returning the ecosystem to its former state simply by stopping shipments of new seed.
To release genetically-engineered rice without crippling its reproduction is irresponsible and probably unethical in the pertinent scientific community. If you are unconvinced, try taking an important piece of an application of yours, making some changes, perhaps to the public interfaces, and then putting it back in untested for the next build without version control or backups. Now see what happens to your application.
I am all for using genetically engineered whatever, but only if appropriate safeguards are taken. The easy and obvious safeguard is crippling reproduction, at least until effects are observed for several decades. That is, unless the impact on every organism in the ecosystem is evaluated prior to release, which is nearly impossible, except in extremely closed systems, without computational anNum) resources currently beyond our means.
The world doesn´t need gm crops... (Score:3)
already produces and to transfer technology to
poor contries that suffer from salinisation, desertification, etc, simply because of poor
agricultural methods.
The solutions this planet needs are very simple, and they all start with education for third world farmers.
caution (Score:3)
- zebra muscles in the Great Lakes, introduced to prey upon some 'bad guy' or other, and now taking over the niche of native clams and muscles
- kudzu introduced into the south to control roadside erosion, now famous for growing rampantly out of control.
- pompas grass, introduced into CA from S America to control erosion, now grows everywhere, out competing endangered native grasses.
The list goes on and on...Now, I know, nutritionally enhanced rice sounds innocuous at worst, and life-saving at best, but ... it is so difficult to predict the effects of tweaking any of the variables in the complex dynamic systems of our ecosphere. Too often the result is unexpected and irreversable damage.
Given that the problem of malnutrition is not the result of a lack of resources in the world, but of a flawed distrobution system for those resources, wouldn't we be wiser to spend our energies and money solving the distrobution problem, rather than inventing one more expensive, monopoly-controlled food source and peddling it to the world's poorest countries?
Just my $.02
Joe's -- No GMO's!
posponing the inevitable.... (Score:2)
if you feed the starving without educating them you are just posponing the inevitable. they will continue to reproduce until thier ability to feed themselves becomes a problem once again. then we will have to find more nutritious food once again.
the solution to starvation is education! we need to teach them the value of birth control. until this point is realized and we can control our population, disease, starvation and violence will result. this is one of the greatest threats facing humanity currently, and it gets worse each year.
john
Re:GM food is not a good idea yet (Score:2)
I'm allergic to pennicillin & most of it's derivitives. I almost died from a dose when I was a child. Others have and continue to die from allergic reactions to even today. It does not follow that antibiotics are to be banned as "we can't afford a single mistake". Had Alexander Fleming's discovery of pennicillin had to be held to the same level of luddite reasoning that you want to apply to golden rice, the millions that have been saved through antibiotics use would have died!
I just hope that if we're related, you inherited all the recessives...
Re:Crippled for a reason (Score:2)
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:2)
fertilisers, which are *proven* to cause long-term damage to the
environment compared to GM, where the degree of harm is mostly
alleged, and where there is evidence, it is less.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:2)
Or why doesn't they just eat cake instead?
Re:GM food is not a good idea yet (Score:4)
Well, if GM food isn't a good idea yet, somebody really should have let Gregor Mendel [google.com] know that a while ago. Because you know what? He was genetically modifying food. Sure, he wasn't using fancy gene splicing techniques, but he was quite literally modifying the genetic structure of pea plants through rigorous cross-breeding, and he was doing so in a decidedly artifical manner.
Companies today like Pioneer have entire fields devoted to this same practice of aggressively cross-breeding various staples in efforts to yield more disease-resistant, larger, tastier foods. Why, oh why, do people not get just as worked up over aggressive cross-breeding as they do over laboratory-based genetic engineering? Is it our obsession with the whole natural = right, artificial = wrong? If so, just keep reminding yourself that glasses are extremely unnatural, whereas the Bubonic Plague is 100% pure Mother Earth.
We most certainly can afford a single mistake. We, as a species, have made more mistakes in our history than I can possibly count, and yet here we are. Somehow, nature forgave us for introducing things like horses to North America and tobacco to Europe, even though these things were -clearly- never intended to happen through any 'natural' means.
GM food is indeed quite ready now. We shouldn't let the FUD of a bunch of luddite crackpots, weepy Sally-Fieldsesque mothers and pseudo-scientists stop us.
$ man reality
Can I just point out (Score:2)
That if this guy wanted to save 3,500 children each day then he simply would.
If he really gave a flying fuck about the poor third world children then he would simply ignore the laws and the protesters and the patent lawyers and mail some seeds over to them.
Am I the only person that sees this?
Re:Yeah, GREAT IDEA! (Score:5)
> rice kernel is extremely harmful (similar
> things have happened before with frankenfoods)
Or, to put it another way, no they haven't. Unless you know something everyone else doesn't. Citation, please.
> The whole 'grow once and never again' isn't
> just a good business model for the corporations
> that make this stuff, it's a safety precaution.
Actually, it's an unavoidable side effect for most of the world's sterile or functionally sterile crops, IIRC. Hybrid grain, as grown by just about everyone that grows grain commercially, isn't gene-spliced or franken-anythinged. It's just very highly engineered by essentially old-fashioned methods (super-repeated crossing of different strains of durum, rye, et cetera) to have gigantic yield. A side effect is that it can't reproduce - or, at least, it can't breed true.
This isn't to say that deliberately engineered sterility can't be a useful feature, commercially speaking, and safety-wise; if you make a transgenic plant with some bad-ass drug in its leaves, you want to make as sure as possible that it cannot cross-breed with other strains.
But all the misinformed hysteria about Terminator Technology ("it'll get out in the pollen, and EVERYTHING will become sterile!!!") seems to me to be at least a hundred years too late. Someone out there probably knows when triticale was first created; I don't remember my high school agriculture classes that well
Of course it's possible that genetically engineered organisms pose a risk not posed by the old-fashioned kind of GE (where you mix genes by crossing different strains). "Real" GE lets you introduce genetic material that does not exist in anything you could cross with any possible normal biological ancestor of the resultant organism.
But that, in itself, does not create a risk sufficient to outweigh the demonstrable advantages of GE in reducing other risks - like the risk of starvation, or the risk of environmental damage from pesticide and fertiliser run-off and overspray, or the risk of mass extinctions caused by people practising slash and burn agriculture in ways unchanged for 25,000 years. GE offers solutions to these sorts of problems.
It's an analogous situation to the first nuclear fission experiments, in which the possibility of an uncontrollable chain reaction destroying the entire planet could not be ruled out. Indeed, logically, NO possibility can EVER be completely ruled out. Real scientists don't make absolute statements.
But the world-bomb downside seemed very, VERY unlikely, and the upside seemed very large. The same situation pertains today, but GE isn't being done in secret at Los Alamos. So, today, the uninformed mobs can storm in and smash scientists' greenhouses and rip up their fields.
> If you think for a minute that the people
> making this crap aren't spinning the "Look how
> many people are dying because we can't
> distribute our product' angle out of pure
> greed, you're got another thing coming.
That'd explain why Dr. Potrykus, who invented golden rice, wants so desperately to GIVE IT AWAY, now wouldn't it?
Read the article before posting, please.
If you do that, and then form the opinion that it is a good idea to take up pitchforks and flaming torches and march on the castle on the hill, go right ahead. But if you join the lynch mob just because, as Dr. Potrykus says, "...the genetic engineer is in the public opinion the devil", then you are in my opinion a damn fool.
unknown (Score:4)
Of the many people who have tried to explain to me that genetic engineering is dangerous, none even seemed to know what a 'gene' is. Nor will they listen if you try to explain. They only know it is dangerous, not what it is. Apparently the knowledge itself is considered dangerous.
Too much vitamin A is bad for you. In high levels it is a known teratogen (can deform a foetus)
Re:Any harm yet? (Score:3)
Health risks aren't the only percieved risk with GM crops. I'm not even sure they're the main objection. There's also the possibility they may cause harm to ecosystems around where the crop is grown. Of course, farming (esp. large scale industrial farming) has always disrupted ecosystems, and there's a great deal of ill-considered basic fear of the new going on, but nonetheless these things are worth thinking hard about before going into large-scale production.
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The Amount of Food is Not The Issue (Score:3)
What also usually ends up happening is that through the increased use of monocultures, pesticides, etc. it is a major blow to the environment. So let's tally that all up:
hungry people: lose.
the environment: loses.
(already)rich agribusiness CEO's: win!
this looks like it has about the same result as anything else large corporations are pushing for.
Re:GM food is not a good idea yet (Score:2)
Others have and continue to die from allergic reactions to even today. It does not follow that antibiotics are to be banned as "we can't afford a single mistake".
How would you like to eat a bananna that picked up a GM trait for penecillin production? The key difference is that penecillin production now requires a positive action, it won't just spontainiously appear in your food as a result of today's production methods.
At one time, widespread use of DDT looked like a good idea. It's a good thing nobody engineered a plant that produced it and released it into mosquito infested areas. Imagine if kudzu or water hyacinth had been engineered like that! Ever tried to kill kudzu?
Re:Any harm yet? (Score:2)
Mod the parent up. (Score:2)
Couldn't have said it better myself. We artificially genetically modify not only plants, but animals too - and we've been doing it for as long as animals have been domesticated, same as food, and many species characteristics that we take for granted are the result.
More GM food, cheaper food, less people starving, less PESTICIDES, which should scare the shit out of you (ever work on a farm? You'd be shocked to see some of the precautions you need to take.. "DANGER: NERVE TOXIN" etc.. Genetically modified foods have major advantages over spraying "natural" crops with chemicals that you can't even pronounce. Betcha didn't know that people for decades used lead to turn oranges a nice color.. ahhh, the ignorant masses.
Re:Reproduction crippling can be a good thing. (Score:2)
Considering the problems that new science (especially in conjunction with profit before people concepts) has caused before, from thalidomide babies to CFC pollution, it's hardly surprising that GMO is viewed with suspicion. The need to keep the shareholders happy has led to incomplete testing before on many things, scientists and technologists should not be hassling those that are justifiably nervous about screwing around with the ecosystem, they should be hassling the money men that cause corners to be cut in the name of higher share prices. But of course that would be unAmerican.